SARASOTA, Fla. — The lights were dimmed. The fans were on their feet. The towering pitcher looked determined.
Tyler Wells took the mound Saturday at Ed Smith Stadium, and in a way that only baseball’s spring training can provide, one of the strangest half innings of baseball was conducted.
Wells pitched the final 3 2/3 innings of the Orioles’ 3-2 win over the Toronto Blue Jays in Baltimore’s final home game of camp. But the 6-foot-8 right-hander still needed to throw about 15 more pitches, and the Orioles wanted him to do it against hitters instead of in a bullpen setting.
So they decided to just wait for after the game to have Wells, the club’s No. 3 starter, get his work in. Easy, right?
No.
Nothing — absolutely nothing — is ever easy during spring training.
Wells had to wait out a 10-minute fireworks show that delighted the fans, from the toddlers screaming in excitement to the grandparents hoping they’d stop. He sat in the dugout, signed autographs from fans and then, when the fireworks ended, walked back out to the bump to get his work in.
It was hardly a game atmosphere. Most of the stadium lights were off. The approximately 7,210 fans had dwindled to just a few hundred — each of them standing to get a glimpse of the oddity occurring on the field. Small leftover fireworks went off in the background. And the speakers were blaring music, but only one song was needed for the entirety of Wells’ frame: Led Zeppelin’s 7-minute, 55-second “Stairway to Heaven.”
“I mean, it’s a good song,” Wells said with a laugh just minutes after he walked off the mound. “Not the most ideal for me to pitch to. That’s all I heard in my ear.”
The Orioles won 3-2 over the Blue Jays. Tyler Wells threw the last 3.2 innings. The fans enjoyed a fireworks show.
But Wells still needs to get his pitch count up. So he’s now pitching after the fireworks show ended.
How can you not be romantic about (spring training) baseball? pic.twitter.com/ZhtQfsmaPW
— Jacob Calvin Meyer (@jcalvinmeyer) March 24, 2024
The experience for Wells — and everyone else watching — was “a first.”
“It was fun,” he said. “This is kind of where you make light of the little nuances of spring training that you don’t really get anywhere else.
“We had to get our work in, and, you know, that was the most feasible way of doing it.”
The scoreboard was turned off — although, of course, it rarely works at Ed Smith Stadium anyway — but Wells did give up his lone run of the evening, allowing a solo homer to first base prospect TT Bowens.
“I think that’s funny because I told someone, I was like, ‘Solo homer, that’s my signature on a start,’” Wells said, referencing his proclivity for allowing solo shots. “It just took extra innings to get us there.”
Wells was the club’s best starting pitcher in the first half last season and was a candidate to make the All-Star team. But he ran out of gas in July, was demoted to the minors and returned in September as a late-inning reliever. He’s back in camp this year with a spot in the Orioles’ rotation, and he’s ready to prove he can hold up for a full season.
The 29-year-old surrendered four hits and struck out four in his pre-fireworks innings. In 14 2/3 innings this spring, he has a 1.26 ERA. Counting the phantom inning after the fireworks, it’s 1.72 ERA.
“It was a fun way — interesting way, but fun way — to wrap up camp,” Wells said.
Around the horn
• Corbin Burnes started the game before Wells with his sharpest start this spring. The new Orioles ace allowed five runs and two runs (one earned) in 5 1/3 innings with four strikeouts. He will start opening day Thursday against the Los Angeles Angels at Camden Yards. “We’re in a great spot,” Burnes said.
• Anthony Santander led the offense in the win — the Orioles’ 21st in 29 spring games — by hitting a solo homer for his fifth in camp. The switch-hitting slugger is entering a contract year and appears eager to show what he’s worth.
• Left fielder Austin Hays was hit by a pitch on the shoulder and exited with a bruised right shoulder. Manager Brandon Hyde said the pitch hit him in a “weird spot where it got sore kind of quick” but that he’s hoping Hays, an All-Star last season, will be fine.
• Saturday featured a split-squad doubleheader with many of the Orioles’ nonstarters playing in Port Charlotte against the Tampa Bay Rays. Julio Teheran pitched four scoreless innings and Kolten Wong and Colton Cowser homered to lead the Orioles to a 6-4 win. All three players are competing for roster spots ahead of the last day of spring training Sunday.
Grapefruit League finale
Orioles at Twins
Sunday, 1:05 p.m.
Radio: 97.9 FM, 101.5 FM, 1090 AM